November 10, 2025
Senate passes shutdown-ending deal
11/10/2025 09:30 PM EST, PoliticOThe Senate passed a government funding package Monday night that paves the way for ending the longest shutdown in history.The 60-40 vote came roughly 24 hours after a bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators, in tandem with Majority Leader John Thune, reached an agreement that officially broke a weeks-long partisan stalemate.The bipartisan bill still needs to pass the House and get signed by President Donald Trump before the government can reopen. Speaker Mike Johnson has advised his members the House could vote on the package as soon as Wednesday.But Senate passage puts the federal funding lapse on track to be over by the end of the week. Trump is expected to lean on any potential House GOP holdouts, and a cadre of moderate House Democrats could support the plan in a break with party leaders, who are still smarting over the failure to secure an extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits.————–
STATE BUDGET
‘Quick Start’ meeting scheduled to kick off state budget process
Capitol Confidential, 11/10
We’re about five months away from when the next state budget is due but that process is now scheduled to get underway this week.Hochul will propose her executive budget in January. That will be based on her administration’s outlook on revenue through next March.We’ll get our first look this week at how the state Division of Budget, the state comptroller’s office and lawmakers in both chambers of the state Legislature are projecting the state’s finances ahead of negotiations on the spending plan.The annual “Quick Start” budget meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Room 124 of the state Capitol.Here’s what happens there: State Budget Director Blake Washington and staff from the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee and state comptroller’s office all convene to share their respective insights.That includes their view on how much the state will take in and what they’re expecting in terms of disbursements for the next state budget.We also get a preview of what those discussions will be based on:The state Division of Budget released its mid-year update at the end of October.The Assembly Ways and Means Committee released its analysis last week.The Senate Finance Committee released its outlook last week as well.And the state comptroller’s office published its report in recent days.Long story short, the comptroller’s office, the Assembly and the Senate are projecting more revenue than the state Division of Budget. That’s not unusual.
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Mayor-elect Mamdani announces first top City Hall appointments
BY Erica Brosnan New York City, State of Politics, 11/10
Less than a week after his historic win, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has announced his first top appointments, naming Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor and Elle Bisgaard-Church as chief of staff.
Fuleihan, a veteran of state and city government, previously served as first deputy mayor and budget director under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, overseeing a city budget of more than $100 billion and helping lead New York through its pandemic recovery, Mamdani said in a release.
What You Need To Know
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has announced his first top appointments, naming Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor and Elle Bisgaard-Church as chief of staff
Fuleihan, a veteran of state and city government, previously served as first deputy mayor and budget director under former Mayor Bill de Blasio
Bisgaard-Church managed Mamdani’s primary campaign and became the campaign’s chief adviser after the primary. She also served as Mamdani’s chief of staff in the state Assembly
He also held staff positions in the state Assembly for three decades, including 16 years as a policy adviser to former Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Bisgaard-Church, meanwhile, managed Mamdani’s primary campaign and became the campaign’s chief adviser after the primary.
She also served as Mamdani’s chief of staff in the state Assembly, playing a role in several of his legislative priorities, including a free bus pilot and debt relief for taxi drivers, the release said.
At a news conference, Mamdani said the appointments mark the beginning of his administration’s work.
“I know that many have watched our victory with fascination and excitement. My goal is that the triumph we won last Tuesday, to quickly be subsumed under the drumbeat of achievements that we deliver from City Hall, achievements that make immediate, meaningful differences in the lives of New Yorkers, too often forgotten and ignored by those who have held positions such as these,” he said.
“These leaders alongside me are only the first of many that we will announce,” he added. “I hope their reputations and records of accomplishment are proof of intent to deliver tangible change. This is a moment of opportunity that comes along rarely, and we seize upon it to usher a new day for New York.”
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How Democrats Fell Out of Love with Chuck Schumer
(Politico Nightly, 11/10)
DEATH RATTLE — Eight Senate Democrats voted Sunday for a funding package to end the government shutdown. Chuck Schumer was not one of them. Still, he is facing fierce criticism, and the resulting fallout has renewed a debate over removing him from his job as Senate minority leader.
Democratic House members lit into Schumer. Fellow Democratic senators Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren all publicly complained about the deal. Until recently, Democratic candidates for Senate across the country have been sidestepping the question of whether they would support Schumer as leader — or answering directly that they would not. Now, in the wake of the shutdown deal, a handful flat out blasted Schumer’s leadership as news of the deal spread.
“Chuck Schumer failed in his job yet again,” said Graham Platner, a progressive favorite running in Maine said in a video on X. “We need to elect leaders who want to fight. … Call your senators and tell them Chuck Schumer can no longer be leader. Call your congressman and tell them that they cannot vote for this when it comes to them.”
Whatever Schumer’s eventual fate, the end of the 2025 shutdown is the death rattle of a certain kind of leadership in Washington — the final days of the sort of legislative leadership and political horse trading that has defined Schumer’s career. In the new Washington, but especially in the emerging Democratic Party, there may be no place for a leader like Schumer.
It doesn’t matter that he voted no on the shutdown deal. Progressives remain furious at Schumer, either because of frustrations that he couldn’t keep his caucus together or because of the belief that he facilitated it before walking away. His many detractors view his style and approach as embodying an era before Congress was completely and utterly broken, and before Washington was engaged in total war. They view him as unsuited for the moment.
Over decades in Congress, there have been various inflection points that have blown up the status quo and changed the nature of the governing body. Trump’s second presidency — and the fury that it has wrought from a Democratic base that wants to see their representatives grind his agenda to a halt — has become one of these moments. Democrats are done talking about generational change at the top. It is now happening before our eyes.
In Maine, even revelations of a pro-Nazi tattoo don’t seem to have steered many primary voters away from supporting Platner, a 41-year-old oysterman, over 77-year-old Gov. Janet Mills. In nearby Massachusetts, 47-year-old Rep. Seth Moulton’s challenge of 79-year-old Sen. Ed Markey is predicated on a generational change argument.
Some Democrats who have ruled over the party for decades see the change coming and are choosing to exit stage left. Just last week, after close to 40 years in the House, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would not seek reelection. But even her chosen successor Hakeem Jeffries, once the avatar of a new generation of Democrat, could face an intense primary challenge for his sin of leading the party’s establishment.
The Democrats who voted for the funding deal to reopen the government argue that they extracted important concessions from Republicans and then voted to protect their constituents from more shutdown-related pain. But the Democratic base, and increasingly more Democratic lawmakers, appear uninterested in marginal gains like the promise of a vote on Affordable Health Care Act subsidies. What they would like is something more ambitious — a tear-down of establishment politics and the installation of wartime leaders for a new kind of war.